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Whose Line Is It Anyway? (U.S. Series)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (often known as simply Whose Line?) is an improvisational comedy show, which was originally hosted by Drew Carey on ABC and ABC Family and ran from August 5, 1998 to December 15, 2007. The show was later revived in 2013, hosted by Aisha Tyler and airing on The CW, with the first episode of the revival airing on July 16, 2013. The series is a spin-off of the British show of the same name and features Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, and Wayne Brady as its regular performers with the fourth seat occupied by a guest panelist. All three regulars appeared on the British series; Stiles and Mochrie were regulars there as well while Brady was a frequent guest on the final series which moved production from London to Hollywood. Format The show consists of a panel of four performers who create characters, scenes and songs on the spot, in the style of short-form improvisation games. Topics for the games are based on either audience suggestions or predetermined prompts from the host, who would set up a game and situation that the performers would improvise. The original host Drew Carey awarded arbitrary point values after each game, often citing a humorous reason for his decision. The points were purely decorative and served no practical purpose. He would reiterate this at the beginning of, and multiple times throughout, each episode by describing Whose Line as "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter". The style of the games were varied (see Games, below). Some featured all four performers, while others featured fewer. Between games, the performers sat in four chairs facing the audience. The performers who were not involved in a game remained in their seats. Additionally, the show was marked by humorous banter among the performers and host. At the conclusion of each episode, a winner or several winners were chosen arbitrarily by Carey. The "prize" was either to play a game with the host, or to sit out while the other performers did so. After this game during the first season of the series, credits simply rolled under the show's theme. In the second season, the reading of the credits was performed by one or more cast members in a comedic fashion, based on a theme announced by Carey that often derived from a successful joke earlier in the show. The show's 'short-form' approach to improv received criticism from some improv actors. However, performer Colin Mochrie has stated the show was never intended to be the "be-all and end-all" of improv, but that it was meant to introduce improv to the masses.Conversations with Ross: Featuring Colin Mochrie http://www.rosscarey.com/2011/07/28/episode-40-featuring-colin-mochrie/ Performers/players Drew Carey hosted the first U.S. version of Whose Line?. The two regular performers during the first season were Colin Mochrie (third seat) and Ryan Stiles (fourth seat), who had been regular performers in the UK version of the show. Wayne Brady appeared as a recurring performer during the first season and became a regular performer during the second season, appearing in either the first or second seat. The remaining seat was most commonly filled by other veterans of the UK series, including Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, and Chip Esten. Proops and Sherwood sat in the first seat, while Esten sat in the second seat. Esten did not appear until the second season. Several newcomers joined the rotation, such as Denny Siegel, Kathy Kinney, Kathy Greenwood and Jeff Davis in the first two seasons, and all of them sat in the second seat. Patrick Bristow, Stephen Colbert, and Ian Gomez also made appearances in the first season. The show occasionally featured celebrity fourth-chairs, such as Robin Williams, Kathy Griffin and Whoopi Goldberg. The special guest panelist with the most appearances was Jonathan L. Dee whose friendship with Carey and Mochrie allowed him greater access to the show. Mochrie had also worked for Dee on The Amazing Spider-Man who served as a producer. All celebrity fourth-chairs sat in the second seat. Other celebrities made guest appearances for individual games, including: Sid Caesar, David Hasselhoff, Florence Henderson, Jerry Springer, Joanie "Chyna" Laurer, Richard Simmons, Katie Harman, Jayne Trcka, the Loyola Marymount University cheerleaders, Hugh Hefner and Lassie. Improvisational musician Laura Hall, who also appeared in the tenth series of the British version, joined the American series for its entire run and performed piano and keyboards in games featuring improvisational singing by the cast members. From the second season onward, other musicians joined Hall. Linda Taylor made frequent appearances playing guitar and occasionally keyboards. Cece Worrall-Rubin, Anne King, Candy Girard and Anna Wanselius appeared alongside Hall (and sometimes also Taylor) on occasion. Games The number and type of games played varied from episode to episode. However, some games became more common over time, while others faded from use. New games were created throughout the run of both series. Some games are based on traditional improv games, while others were uniquely created for the series. While all games were designed to test the performers' improvisational comedy skills, some also tested other skills, such as singing, dancing, or impressions. Whose Line features a number of musical games, with one or more of the show's resident musicians playing live backing music. Occasionally, pre-recorded music was also used. While they had no bad feelings about it, many of the performers disliked the musical gamesConversations with Ross: Featuring Brad Sherwood http://www.rosscarey.com/2011/08/17/episode-42-featuring-brad-sherwood/ (Stiles in particular frequently expressed open disdain towards the "Hoedown" game); Wayne Brady turned out to be well-suited to the musical games, with Chip Esten, Jeff Davis and Brad Sherwood also making frequent appearances as Wayne's duet partner. Only on rare occasions did Mochrie actually sing any lyrics. Instead, he would simply deliver his lines in a spoken word fashion. Some games require suggestions for specific topics or situations. The host will sometimes call to the studio audience for suggestions, while for other games, this information is written by the production staff, or submitted by the audience in advance, and chosen from those submissions. The host also controls a buzzer, which will end most games (or individual sections of rapid-fire games). History Whose Line Is It Anyway? was created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson in 1988 as a radio show on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom. This early incarnation of the show is notable as being the origin of its tradition of having the performers read the credits in an amusing style; as it was a radio show, it was necessary for somebody to read the credits, and it was decided that it might as well be done as part of the program, rather than being done by a traditional BBC Radio announcer. This approach to reading credits was pioneered by the earlier BBC radio show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again. Indeed, the title of the show itself is a comedic riposte to another radio show, What's My Line, merged with the title of a 1972 teleplay (and eventual theatrical play) Whose Life Is It Anyway?. The radio series lasted for six episodes, after which Channel 4 developed the franchise for television. The British television version lasted for a total of 10 seasons, with 136 episodes, all of which were hosted by Clive Anderson. Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles, who would later star in the U.S. version, became regular cast members in the seventh and eighth seasons. The UK series was brought to the attention of Drew Carey, who worked with regular Whose Line? performer Ryan Stiles, a co-star on The Drew Carey Show. Carey convinced ABC to air test episodes in the United States. The show turned into an inexpensive hit (though less so than the British version) and ABC kept Carey on as host. The show ran on ABC for six seasons, benefiting from the low expectations of its Thursday night time slot, as ABC was not expected to mount a serious threat to what was then NBC's longtime Thursday dominance in the Nielsen ratings. While the network would regularly premiere two new episodes in one night, there were several occurrences in which some episodes were skipped or postponed until a later date because of the airing of other new shows or specials. The format of the American version was very similar to the British program. A major difference was Carey's use of the game-show facade, explicitly stating at the start of each episode that "the points don't matter," and sometimes emphasizing this throughout the episodes. The difference in standards in the UK compared to U.S. prime time meant stricter censoring of both language and content on the U.S. series. Production of the American version was canceled by ABC in 2003 because of low ratings, with already-produced episodes airing first-run into 2004. The ABC Family cable channel, which had been airing repeats of the show since 2002, also showed "new" episodes from 2005 to 2007, formed from previously filmed but unaired performances. Hiatus Following the cancellation, Carey went on to create the short-lived Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, which premiered in 2004 on the WB. The series was very similar to Whose Line?, and featured many of the same cast. The major gimmick on that series was that the acting was done in front of a green screen, and animators later added cartoon imagery to the scenes. Drew Carey and several cast members also started touring North America with a live-action show called (Drew Carey's) Improv All-Stars. The show was a live stage show similar to Whose Line?, and featuring many of the same games, though also with some new ones. The live shows started in 2003, and since 2006, are only seen on occasion, mostly due to Carey's current television obligations. Colin Mochrie, Brad Sherwood and Drew Carey performed at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal as "Improv All-Stars" in 2003 and 2004. Since 2005, Mochrie and Sherwood have toured semi-regularly as An Evening With Colin and Brad.An Evening With Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood The show was recorded on Stage 29 at Paramount Studios. Greg Proops and Ryan Stiles presented Stiles & Proops Unplanned which was a live improv comedy show based on the successful Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned format that took place at Centaur Theatre in Montreal, Canada in July 2008. They also tour with former co-stars Chip Esten and Jeff Davis under the name Whose Live Anyway? doing live improv. Proops appeared as Max Madigan on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP, and is currently hosting Head Games on The Science Channel and was the host of "Odd News" segments for Yahoo! (now called Broken News Daily) while Esten has made multiple appearances in various TV series including The Office, ER (also produced by Warner Bros.) and Big Love and guest-starred in Enlightened. In 2007, Mochrie was host of a five-episode run of Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader? on Global TV in Canada. Carey, Stiles, Brady, and Esten were all later employed by American television network CBS; Carey succeeded Bob Barker as the host of the long-running game show The Price Is Right (after a short stint as host of another game show, Power of 10). In addition, Sherwood and Davis served as guest announcers for the 2010-11 season of The Price Is Right, after the departure of Rich Fields, who was eventually replaced by George Gray. Stiles has appeared as a supporting character on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. Esten had a recurring role on The New Adventures of Old Christine, made a guest appearance in NCIS: Los Angeles, and currently stars in Nashville. Brady had a summer variety show on ABC in 2001, The Wayne Brady Show and then hosted a daytime talk show of the same name for two seasons, starting in September 2002. He also was the host of Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics. In 2007, he made a guest appearance in one episode of 30 Rock, and has made several appearances on How I Met Your Mother as Barney Stinson's homosexual brother. He also had a couple of guest appearances on Chappelle's Show. Since October 5, 2009, Brady has been the host of CBS' revival of the classic game show Let's Make a Deal. Featuring Jonathan Mangum as announcer and Co-Host, this new iteration utilized some classic elements of improv from Whose Line, most notably Brady's singing and comedic abilities, occasionally breaking out into spontaneous musical improv in front of or involving contestants, and not being a stipulated aspect of the particular game to be played. As of 2009, at least every main Whose Line participant has hosted a game show except Ryan Stiles. On November 18, 2010, Variety announced that Drew Carey would start a primetime improv show on GSN. The series, entitled Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza, debuted on April 11, 2011 on GSN and has featured most of the Whose Line regular cast and ended in June 2011; Rich Fields was the announcer for the series. A second season was not ordered and the show was terminated. On July 10, 2012, ABC premiered a new improv comedy series featuring several of the Whose Line alumni called Trust Us With Your Life. Some of the players included Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady, Greg Proops, Jonathan Mangum, and Nicole Parker. However, on July 30, after only six episodes had aired, ABC pulled the remaining episodes after its host Fred Willard was arrested on a lewd-conduct charge at the Tiki Theater, an adult movie theater in Hollywood, California. In February 2013, Ryan Stiles revealed in an interview that he would be returning to Los Angeles in April for a new season of Whose Line, hosted by Aisha Tyler and featuring the original cast of the U.S. version. It was confirmed that The CW would bring back the comedy series for 12 episodes beginning on July 16, 2013. CW revival Whose Line Is It Anyway? returned to television, this time on The CW, with Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and Wayne Brady, and Aisha Tyler taking the role of the host. The summer run was made up of twelve half-hour episodes with the three veteran players joined by a featured player, along with a different special guest for each episode who would play in some of the games. On July 29, 2013, The CW announced that it had renewed the show for a 24-episode season, airing Fridays at 8 ET/PT starting March 21, 2014, due to solid ratings. On July 18, 2014, The CW announced that the show will be returning for a 24-episode eleventh season (and third season on The CW) which started airing on April 17, 2015. Notable performers Main *Ryan Stiles – 263 episodes *Colin Mochrie – 264 episodes *Wayne Brady – 255 episodes (starring seasons 2–7, 9–; recurring seasons 1 & 8) *Drew Carey (host) – 219 episodes (seasons 1–8) *Aisha Tyler (host) – 45 episodes (season 9–) Recurring * Greg Proops – 62 episodes * Brad Sherwood – 59 episodes * Chip Esten – 39 episodes * Kathy Greenwood – 33 episodes * Jeff Davis – 21 episodes * Denny Siegel – 14 episodes * Gary Anthony Williams – 8 episodes * Keegan-Michael Key – 6 episodes * Heather Anne Campbell – 5 episodes * Jonathan Mangum – 4 episodes * Nyima Funk – 4 episodes * Karen Maruyama – 3 episodes Musicians * Laura Hall – 225 episodes * Linda Taylor – 119 episodes Guest stars Seasons 1–8 * Jonathan L. Dee - 43 episodes * Kathy Griffin – 4 episodes * Patrick Bristow – 2 episodes * Stephen Colbert – 2 episodes * Whoopi Goldberg – 2 episodes * Ian Gomez – 2 episodes * Josie Lawrence – 2 episodes * Jerry Springer – 2 episodes * Kathy Kinney (season 1, episode 6) * Robin Williams (season 3, episode 9) * Lassie and Sid Caesar (season 4, episode 15) * Hugh Hefner, Ava Fabian, and Victoria Fuller (season 4, episode 24) * Florence Henderson (season 5, episode 4) * Joanie "Chyna" Laurer (season 5, episode 8) * Richard Simmons (season 5, episode 17) * David Hasselhoff (Season 5, episode 19) * Jayne Trcka (Season 5, episode 21) * Veena and Neena Bidasha (Season 5, episode 25) * Undarma Darihu (Season 5, episode 28) * Loyola Marymount University Cheerleaders (Season 6, Episode 6) * Santa Claus and Donner (Season 8, Episode 6) Season 9 * Lauren Cohan (episode 1) * Kevin McHale (episode 2) * Candice Accola (episode 3) * Kyle Richards (episode 4) * Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva (episode 5) * Wilson Bethel (episode 6) * Lisa Leslie (episode 7) * Laila Ali (episode 9) * Maggie Q (episode 10) * Chloe Butler (episode 11) * Shawn Johnson (episode 12) Season 10 * Kat Graham (episode 1) * Tara Lipinski (episode 2) * Verne Troyer (episode 3) * Darren Criss (episode 4) * Michael Weatherly (episode 5) * Byambajav Ulambayar (episode 6) * Nolan Gould (episode 7) * Mircea Monroe (episode 8) * Jack Osbourne (episode 10) * Rob Gronkowski (episode 11) * Robbie Amell (episode 12) * Misha Collins (episode 13) * Sheryl Underwood (episode 14) * Mel B. (episode 15) * Kunal Nayyar (episode 16) * Padma Lakshmi (episode 18) * Matt Barnes (episode 20) * Brian Shaw (episode 22) * Wendi McLendon-Covey (episode 23) Season 11 * Cedric the Entertainer (episode 1) * Adelaide Kane (episode 2) * Jamie Camil (episode 4) * Scott Porter (episode 5) * Willie Robertson (episode 6) * Heather Morris (episode 7) * Vernon Davis (episode 8) Episodes Awards and nominations Won: *2003: Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for Wayne Brady Nominated: *2001: Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program' for Wayne Brady *2002: Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program' for Wayne Brady *2002: Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program' for Ryan Stiles International broadcast The U.S. version of Whose Line? has been broadcast in the UK, originally on Channel 4. Challenge was the first non-terrestrial channel to broadcast the show for a brief period in 2005. From 2007 onwards, 5USA has been the current broadcaster to air the show. In Canada, the show also ran on the CTV network from 1998 to 2003, and then on The Comedy Network from 2003 onwards. The show's original run in Australia was broadcast on the Nine Network in an early morning time slot. From 2011, One has been repeating the program to Australian audiences. It also airs on Foxtel (Australian pay-TV) on The Comedy Channel and on Sky Network Television (New Zealand satellite television) on the Box. From 2014, South African youth channel Vuzu started airing the CW revival. DVD releases The first DVD, Season 1, Volume 1, of the U.S. version of Whose Line? was released on September 26, 2006. It comes in "censored" or "uncensored" versions. Both releases include the first ten episodes of the first season, with the episodes being the same on either version. External links * *Whose Line Is It Anyway?, The CW website, includes all past U.S. episodes *Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Hat Trick Productions website *Whose Line Is It Anyway? U.S. and U.K. episodes Category:1990s American television series Category:1998 American television series debuts Category:2000s American television series Category:2007 American television series endings Category:2010s American television series Category:2013 American television series debuts Category:ABC Family shows Category:American Broadcasting Company network shows Category:American sketch comedy television shows Category:American television series based on British television series Category:English-language television programming Category:Television series by Hat Trick Productions Category:Television series by Warner Bros. Television Category:Television series revived after cancellation Category:Improvisational television series